C# in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

PerformanceCounterCategory

Synopsis

This class allows you to create and manage categories of performance counters. You can see the categories recognized by your system when you use the Performance Administrative Tool. When you attempt to add a counter, you’ll see the categories listed in the Performance object drop-list, such as Processor, Memory, Thread, and Network Interface.

Use Create( ) to add a new category. The three-argument form lets you supply a category name, a description of the category, and a collection of CounterCreationData objects. Each CounterCreationData object describes a counter to create in the new category. Use the four-argument form of Create( ) to create a new category with only a single counter.

Delete( ) removes a counter category, and Exists( ) checks whether a given category exists. If you want to check if a specific counter exists in a category, call CounterExists( ). To check for an instance in a category, use InstanceExists( ). GetCategories( ) returns all the categories recognized by the system.

The CategoryHelp, CategoryName, and MachineName properties provide access to the name, help text, and machine name for a given category. You can use the nonstatic versions of CounterExists( ) and InstanceExists( ) to check if a specified counter or instance exists in the inspected category. GetCounters( ) and GetInstanceNames( ) retrieve a list of the counters and instances in a category.

public sealed class PerformanceCounterCategory {
// Public Constructors ...